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being present in Jerusalem during the war, wrote that forty thousand of the Jews perished. But we have explained these matters in our account of the reign of Nero. But the divine Chrysostom, refuting their folly, says these things among many others. "But if you are contentious, O Jew, concerning the end, learn also the present things from those that have passed. For consider. You went down into Egypt, but it was for 400 years, and God quickly delivered you from that bondage, although you were impious and committed the most grievous fornication. You were delivered from Egypt and you worshipped a calf, you sacrificed your sons and your daughters to Baal-peor and to demons, you defiled the temple, you ignored nature. You filled the mountains, the glens, the hills, the springs, the rivers, the gardens with abominable sacrifices. You slaughtered prophets, you tore down altars, you pursued every form of evil and you displayed every excess of wickedness and impiety. But nevertheless, after delivering you to the Babylonians for seventy years, he led you back again to your former freedom, and gave back your fatherland and the temple and the ancient gift of prophecy, and again there were prophets and the grace of the Holy Spirit. Rather, not even in the time of the captivity were you abandoned, but there also were Daniel and Ezekiel, and in Egypt Jeremiah, and indeed before these, Moses and Aaron in the desert. And after those things you returned again to your former wickedness, and you raged like a bacchant, and you adopted the 1.400 Hellenic way of life under the impious Antiochus. But even then, having been handed over to Antiochus for three years, you again set up splendid trophies through the Maccabees. But now there is nothing of the sort, but all is the contrary. And what is most to be wondered at is that the things of wickedness have ceased, but the things of punishment are intensified and there is not even any hope of change. For not only 70 years have passed but many more, and it is not possible to find even a shadow of hope, and this though you are not practicing idolatry, nor doing any other of the things you dared to do before." But that we may speak about these things more clearly and in greater detail, let us begin again from the start. The Jews endured three most grievous bondages, and divine justice brought not one of them upon them without prophecy, but arranged for the place and the time and the manner and the affliction and the return and all other things to be foretold to them with much precision. And concerning the first one in Egypt, God, speaking to Abraham, said thus: "Know for certain that your offspring will be a sojourner in a foreign land, and they will enslave it and afflict it for four hundred years, but in the fourth generation they will come here." But concerning the second, Jeremiah said: "Thus said the Lord. When seventy years are about to be fulfilled for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will establish my good words upon you to bring you back to your place, and I will turn back your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations and from all your places, where I scattered you there, says the Lord. And I will bring you back to the place from which 1.401 I removed you from there." The argument has thus briefly demonstrated two such bondages, coming upon them with prophecy, and not simply or unexpectedly. It remains, then, finally to introduce the third. Then it is necessary to speak also of the fourth which now holds them, and to show clearly how not one prophet promised that there would be any release from the evils holding them, nor indeed deliverance at all. What then is the third? That under Antiochus Epiphanes. For when Alexander the king of the Macedonians, having overthrown Darius, transferred the rule to himself, after he died many kings came after him, of whom this Antiochus was one a long time later; he both burned the temple, and desolated the holy of holies, and abolished the sacrifices, and subjugated the Jews, and destroyed their entire polity. And all these things were foretold with all precision, even to a single day, by Daniel, both when it will be and how

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Ἱερουσαλὴμ παρὼν τῷ πολέμῳ συνέγραψε μυριάδας τʹ ἀπολεσθῆναι τῶν Ἰουδαίων. περὶ δὲ τούτων ἐν τῇ τοῦ Νέρω νος βασιλείᾳ ἐξηγησάμεθα. Ὁ δέ γε θεῖος Χρυσόστομος τὴν τούτων ἄνοιαν διελέγχων πρὸς πλείοσιν ἄλλοις καὶ ταῦτα φάσκει. "εἰ δὲ φιλονεικεῖς, ὦ Ἰουδαῖε, περὶ τοῦ τέλους, ἀπὸ τῶν φθασάντων μάνθανε καὶ τὰ παρόντα. σκόπει γάρ. κατέβης εἰς Αἴγυπτον, ἀλλ' ἐγένοντο ἔτη υʹ, καὶ ταχέως σε τῆς δουλείας ἐκείνης ὁ θεὸς ἀπήλλαξε, καίπερ ἀσεβοῦντα καὶ πορνεύοντα πορνείαν τὴν χαλεπωτάτην. ἀπηλλάγης Αἰγύπτου καὶ προσεκύνησας μόσχῳ, ἔθυσας τοὺς υἱοὺς καὶ τὰς θυγατέρας σου τῷ Βεελφεγὼρ καὶ τοῖς δαιμονίοις, τὸν ναὸν ἐμόλυνας, τὴν φύσιν ἠγνόησας. τὰ ὄρη, τὰς νάπας, τοὺς βουνούς, τὰς πηγάς, τοὺς ποταμούς, τοὺς κήπους τῶν μυ σαρῶν θυσιῶν ἐπλήρωσας. προφήτας ἔσφαξας, θυσιαστήρια κατέσκαψας, πᾶν εἶδος κακίας ἐπῆλθες καὶ πᾶσαν ὑπερβολὴν ἐπεδείξω πονηρίας καὶ ἀσεβείας. ἀλλ' ὅμως ἑβδομήκοντα ἔτη σε παραδοὺς Βαβυλωνίοις πάλιν ἐπὶ τὴν προτέραν ἐπανήγαγεν ἐλευ θερίαν, καὶ τὴν πατρίδα καὶ τὸν ναὸν ἀπέδωκε καὶ τὸ πάλαι τῆς προφητείας χάρισμα, καὶ πάλιν προφῆται καὶ πνεύματος ἁγίου χάρις. μᾶλλον δὲ οὐδ' ἐν τῷ καιρῷ τῆς αἰχμαλωσίας ἐγκατε λείφθης, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐκεῖ ∆ανιὴλ καὶ Ἰεζεχιήλ, καὶ ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ Ἱερεμίας, καὶ μέντοι καὶ πρὸ τούτων Μωϋσῆς καὶ Ἀαρὼν ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ. καὶ μετ' ἐκεῖνα πάλιν ἐπὶ τὴν προτέραν ἐπανῆλθες κα κίαν, καὶ ἐξεβακχεύθης, καὶ πρὸς τὴν Ἑλληνικὴν μετετάξω πο 1.400 λιτείαν ἐπὶ τοῦ ἀσεβοῦς Ἀντιόχου. ἀλλά γε καὶ τότε παραδοθέντες Ἀντιόχῳ ἔτη τρία, τὰ λαμπρὰ διὰ τῶν Μακκαβαίων αὖθις ἐστήσατε τρόπαια. ἀλλὰ νῦν τοιοῦτον οὐδέν, ἀλλὰ τοὐναντίον ἅπαν γέγονεν. ὃ καὶ μάλιστα ἔστι θαυμάσαι, ὅτι τὰ μὲν τῆς κακίας ἔληξε, τὰ δὲ τῆς τιμωρίας ἐπιτέταται καὶ οὐδ' ἐλπίδα τινὰ μεταβολῆς ἔχει. οὐ γὰρ οʹ ἔτη παρῆλθε μόνον ἀλλὰ καὶ πολλῷ πλείονα, καὶ οὐδὲ ἐλπίδος σκιὰν ἔστιν εὑρεῖν, καὶ ταῦτα οὐδὲ εἰδωλολατρούντων ὑμῶν, οὔτε ἄλλο τι ποιούντων ἅπερ ἔμ προσθεν ἐτολμᾶτε." Ἵνα δὲ σαφέστερον καὶ διεξοδικώτερον τὰ περὶ τούτων εἴπω μεν, ἄνωθεν πάλιν ἀρξώμεθα. τρεῖς δουλείας ὑπέστησαν οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι χαλεπωτάτας, καὶ οὐδὲ μίαν χωρὶς προρρήσεως αὐτοῖς ἐπήγαγεν ἡ θεία δίκη, ἀλλὰ προλεχθῆναι παρεσκεύασεν αὐτοῖς καὶ τόπον καὶ χρόνον καὶ τρόπον καὶ κάκωσιν καὶ τὴν ἐπάνοδον καὶ τἆλλα πάντα μετὰ πολλῆς ἀκριβείας. καὶ περὶ μὲν τῆς ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ πρώτης διαλεγόμενος ὁ θεὸς οὕτως ἔφη τῷ Ἀβραάμ "γινώσκων γνῶθι ὅτι πάροικον ἔσται τὸ σπέρμα σου ἐν γῇ ἀλλο τρίᾳ, καὶ δουλώσουσιν αὐτὸ καὶ κακώσουσιν ἔτη τετρακόσια, τε τάρτῃ δὲ γενεᾷ ἐλεύσονται ὧδε." περὶ δὲ τῆς δευτέρας εἶπεν Ἱερεμίας "οὕτως εἶπε κύριος. ὅταν μέλλῃ πληροῦσθαι τῇ Βα βυλῶνι οʹ ἔτη, ἐπισκέψομαι ὑμᾶς, καὶ ἐπιστήσω ἐφ' ὑμᾶς τοὺς ἀγαθοὺς λόγους μου τοῦ ἀποστρέψαι εἰς τὸν τόπον ὑμῶν, καὶ ἐπιστρέψω τὴν αἰχμαλωσίαν ὑμῶν, καὶ ἀθροίσω ὑμᾶς ἐκ τῶν ἐθνῶν πάντων καὶ ἐκ τῶν τόπων ὑμῶν πάντων, οὗ διέσπειρα ὑμᾶς ἐκεῖ, φησὶ κύριος. καὶ ἐπιστρέψω ὑμᾶς εἰς τὸν τόπον ὅθεν 1.401 ἀπῴκισα ὑμᾶς ἐκεῖθεν." δύο μὲν τοιαύτας δουλείας ὁ λόγος διὰ συντόμου ἀπέδειξε, μετὰ προφητείας ἐπελθούσας αὐτοῖς, καὶ οὐχ ἁπλῶς οὐδὲ ἀπροσδοκήτως. λείπεται οὖν δὴ λοιπὸν τὴν τρί την ἐπαγαγεῖν. εἶτα καὶ περὶ τῆς νῦν τετάρτης κατεχούσης αὐ τοὺς εἰπεῖν δεῖ, καὶ δεῖξαι σαφῶς ὅπως οὐδὲ εἷς προφήτης ἐπηγ γείλατο λύσιν ἔσεσθαί τινα τῶν κατεχόντων αὐτοὺς κακῶν οὔτε μὴν ἀπαλλαγὴν τὸ σύνολον. Τίς οὖν ἐστὶν ἡ τρίτη; ἡ ἐπὶ Ἀντιόχου τοῦ ἐπιφανοῦς. ἐπειδὴ γὰρ Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ τῶν Μακεδόνων βασιλεὺς ∆αρεῖον καθε λὼν εἰς ἑαυτὸν περιέστησε τὴν ἀρχήν, τελευτήσαντος τούτου πολ λοὶ μετ' ἐκεῖνον ἐγένοντο βασιλεῖς, ἀφ' ὧν εἷς καὶ οὗτος ὁ Ἀντίο χος μετὰ πολὺν ὕστερον χρόνον τό τε ἱερὸν ἐνέπρησε, τά τε ἅγια τῶν ἁγίων ἠρήμωσε, τάς τε θυσίας καθεῖλε, τούς τε Ἰουδαίους ὑπέταξε, καὶ τὴν πολιτείαν αὐτῶν κατέλυσε πᾶσαν. καὶ ταῦτα πάντα μετὰ ἀκριβείας ἁπάσης καὶ μέχρι μιᾶς ἡμέρας προηγόρευτο παρὰ τοῦ ∆ανιήλ, καὶ πότε ἔσται καὶ πῶς